81 Easy Pasta Recipes for Weeknight Dinners

Sure, these easy pasta recipes are fairly simple to make: you’ll find most of the ingredients in your pantry, pasta is, by nature, only a quick boil away, and let’s be honest, you probably have pre-grated parm in the fridge right now. (Oh, you have a wedge do you? That’s grate!) But they’re all more than just fast and convenient: They’re all big on flavor, too. So yeah, you’re making no-cook puttanesca and that sizzling one-pot sausage number because they’re easy pasta recipes—but also because they’re so damn tasty!

Easy Pasta Recipes

• It’s okay to use frozen peas! We’ll never tell. We love ‘em.

• Classic, silky Alfredo sauce comes from the emulsion of grated Parmesan, cold butter, and starchy pasta water. Keep the cream out of it.
• This red pesto tastes like a mash-up of your favorite spicy arrabbiata sauce and the anchovy-garlic dip bagna cauda. All of which is to say, it’s delicious.
• This creamy lemon pasta recipe is luscious and amply cheesy,but still bright and fresh. Best part: You can make it for dinner in just 15 minutes.
• Mushrooms just need a quick sear in a hot pan before being tossed with pasta and cream in this easy weeknight dinner.
• A bright, summertime pasta sauce packed with in-season tomatoes and briny olives.
• A weeknight pasta that utilizes simple pantry ingredients in a luxurious way.
• Battuto is 1) A chopped herb sauce that tastes like spring 2) Fun to say. Make it!
• Buttery, garlicky, irresistible shrimp scampi—but make it pasta.

• Humble ingredients—eggs, pasta, cheese, and pork—combine to create glossy, glorious spaghetti carbonara that’s just as good at dinner as at 2 a.m.
• It’s creamy. It’s cheesy. It’s tangy. And it’s about to be your new favorite pantry pasta.
• It’s a showstopper. Two bottles of red wine get cooked down to a glossy butter sauce that stains and flavors the spaghetti.
• Our creamy stovetop mac and cheese is about as easy as opening a box—and a whooooole lot more delicious.
• The healthyish comfort food recipe you won’t be able to get enough of.
• Think of this as carbonara minus the eggs but still with massive amounts of flavor from guanciale, black pepper, and Pecorino.
• A simple sauce of juicy, bursty cherry tomatoes (aka nature’s Gushers) that comes together in around 15 minutes.
• Pantry pasta at its best.

• Think of this effortless dish as a vehicle for peppery arugula—one of those rare salad greens we also dig when hot.
• Mushrooms take the place of the traditional cured pork in this super-satisfying vegetarian carbonara recipe.
• If we were to round up an all-star team of summer’s greatest produce, it’d look a little something like ratatouille: Eggplant and zucchini. Peppers and tomatoes. The gang’s all here!
• Broccoli and sausage pair up for an indulgent veg-heavy pasta dinner.
• Something truly magical happens when fennel, garlic, and anchovies get caramelized together.
• This spicy, sweet, and punchy pasta salad is perfect for a hot summer picnic when you need your dishes perfect at room (ahem, air) temperature.
• This kale pesto inspired us to keep spreading the word that there is still no better or more delicious way to eat your greens.
• You will think this pasta recipe calls for an absurd amount of kale, but it will shrink a ton when cooked.
• Think of this weeknight-friendly pasta recipe as a lighter take on the classic Italian ragù that features cherry tomatoes, a red chile for some heat, and tons of fresh basil.
• With lots of olive oil and parm, this asparagus pasta recipe comes from L.A.’s Evan Funke.

• This baked pasta is super-kid-friendly. (They won’t be able to detect the cauliflower!)
• An herb-laced riff on aglio e olio, quick and easy.
• When all you want is a bowl of creamy pasta, adding a pile of golden-brown mushrooms makes it feel virtuous.
• Sautéed squash eventually gets jammy and saucy if cooked long enough, ideal as a way to coat big pieces of pasta.
• We’re throwing this pantry pasta all-star a “Welcome to Summer” party with peas and mint.
• This weeknight-friendly pasta uses one skillet, one pot, and plenty of cheese.
• When tomato season rolls around, this no-cook tomato pasta is our ace in the hole.
• Both guanciale and Pecorino are quite salty; Leonardo Vignoli, the chef at Da Cesare al Casaletto, recommends undersalting the pasta water to give you more control.
• That parsley in your fridge is lonely! Let it hang with chiles and walnuts for your next weeknight pasta.
• This pesto pasta recipe is the solution for any leftover hardy green, lettuce, or herb you don’t know what to do with. Cleaning out your fridge has never been so rewarding!
• Olive oil–packed tuna can get pricey; we also recommend using deboned canned sardines for this pasta recipe.
• Muenster and Fontina are pretty soft cheeses and can be difficult to grate, so just stick both in the freezer 10 minutes to let them firm up before starting.
• Bursting with the big brash flavors of green olives, anchovies, and capers, this herbaceous pasta sauce isn’t afraid to bite back.
• Using shrimp shells to make a quick stock adds an insane depth of flavor to an otherwise simple pasta.
• Built of toasted nuts, creamy ricotta, and salty Parmesan, you don’t even need a food processor to make this riff on the normal pesto you know and love.
• Who says cauliflower is boring? When it’s deeply roasted and tossed with hot, cheesy pasta, it’s anything but.
• In Rome, chef Barbara Lynch ate the perfect carbonara: The sauce was bright yellow from fresh eggs, and each rigatoni hid cubes of fatty guanciale. This is her recipe.
• This pasta sauce is thickened with pureed chickpeas, and it’s finished with a fresh garlic-and-rosemary oil, which adds great flavor and an even better aroma.
• The genius of this pasta recipe is in the contrast of the textures and flavors. If spicy isn’t your thing, sub in any fresh sausage you like.
• Basil is a mere garnish in this nutty, cheesy, peak-season pesto sauce.
• Literally “cheese and pepper”, this minimalist pasta is like a stripped-down mac and cheese.
• This recipe makes more pesto than you’ll need. Serve the extra with vegetables or fish, or spread it on sandwiches.
• A flavorful tomato sauce that’s a cinch to make and rock shrimp that come already peeled mean a weeknight dinner recipe has never been so easy—or delicious.
• Clams vary in brininess and the amount of liquid they’ll release during cooking, so you’ll need to adjust the salt and add pasta water accordingly. To prevent the sauce from getting too salty, we recommend a measured amount of salt for the pasta water. If possible, look for an artisanal dried pasta for this recipe—the rougher surface texture will catch the slippery sauce better.
• If you’ve got a can of tomatoes, a jar of spicy peperoncini, and a hunk of Parm in your fridge, you’re halfway to a satisfying pasta dinner.
• Meaty and flakeable, these fillets don’t mind being tossed.
• The key is to add the basil at the very end instead of blending everything all at once.
• Roasting intensifies the flavor of canned tomatoes.
• The key to this dish is getting a good char on the brussels sprouts, which helps balance the richness of the porky, eggy sauce. Salt draws moisture out of the leaves, which might make them soggy, so don’t season them.
• This quick riff on cacio e pepe is a weeknight savior.

• Break free from your usual basil-and-pine-nut routine with a wintry pesto that was practically meant for a simple plate of spaghetti.
• When a dinner of cheese and butter and noodles sounds a bit too indulgent, just add roasted veg. Boom.
• If your largest skillet isn’t large enough to hold 12 oz. pasta and toss everything together, dump the mixture back into the pot from cooking the rigatoni and toss.
• Almonds are the new breadcrumbs. Their toasty flavor and crunch add just the right contrast to pasta.
• The combination of salty water and salty Parmesan puts this pasta at risk of becoming oversalted. If that happens, throw in a knob of unsalted butter at the end to mellow it and add a smooth finish.
• Why is it that in the dead of winter, everything seems to need a little help? Anchovy butter delivers bold flavor to this back-pocket pasta.
• There’s something special about lobster you’ve prepared yourself, but if cooking one on a weeknight isn’t your speed, buy cooked lobster or shrimp instead.
• This dish is equally as good at room temperature (read: picnics).
• Anchovy butter? What did we do to deserve such a gift?
• Getting the consistency of the creamy mushroom sauce right is key for this pasta recipe. You want to reduce it just until it clings to the pasta to create a light coating.
• Quick-cooking clams are a weeknight cook’s savior.
• The butter (yep, a whole stick) mellows the tart lemon sauce and is key to the finished texture.
• Kabocha squash is made for purées.
• The pungent garlic notes in ramps make them the perfect accompaniment for any pasta dish.
• Whether you know it as American Chop Suey, Chili Mac, or American Goulash, this deeply flavorful, super-comforting pasta dish is greater than the sum of its humble parts.
• Broccoli would be just as good in this pasta with recipe, as would diced winter squash such as butternut or acorn.
• This chopped pesto requires nothing more than a cutting board and a knife.
• Is it necessary to blanch, then shock, the ramp greens? If you want a super-green (not khaki) pesto, it is.
• Make sure the vodka cooks for a full minute or two to evaporate all the booziness.
• This pesto pasta recipe gets heft (and a side of veggies) from the addition of broccoli to the purée. They won’t know it’s there unless you tell them…wink wink.
• For this seasonal (and vegetarian) twist on carbonara, stir the yolk into your portion while the pasta is still steaming hot.
• A perfect summer pasta for when tomatoes are at their ripest.
• A version of this recipe helped chef Danny Bowien win the Pesto World Championship in Italy in 2008. He was kind enough to let us adapt it a bit.